Motion
Studies
Moon-Green
Children I Have Spawned
I.
Enchantment’s wand washes skin
to scale.
Gaining gills, an O-mouth,
the fish smell
is me.
Drowning in air,
I swim a wood
behind my house.
Fin-walking lichen rock,
a slight splash:
I’m under.
II.
Clear current drifts
a river dreamer
over cool stone beds.
One sterile encounter—
without a lover’s touch—
brings the rainbow lot.
First,
glassine eggs,
pearl-round,
clarity cloaked,
cloud over
as enamored father
flings love in a stream.
Life’s jewel-soup thickens,
warms its young,
my sons and daughters,
while father
guards the green-to-be.
Pearls grow tails,
heads, eyes.
Iridescent skin
begins as thin ribbons,
untied in airless breeze.
It pleases me,
their mother,
to wave them off
to other water-worlds.
We are free
of one another.
III.
Moon-green children
I have spawned
are silent,
never need baths,
obey nature’s laws,
don’t attend college,
won’t move back home until old age,
make no demands,
but allow instead
their half-charmed mother
her endless spawning
without touching,
returning by evening tide,
swimming the wood
to home.
To
Birds in My Freezer
Place
One snowy egret,
wrens,
Audrey’s dove,
southsparrows,
a flock of others I can’t name—
names mean less than wings
and ways to fly
from big houses,
small people,
malls,
on-ramps, exits,
there are no exits,
you said.
Liars.
You did; your souls
are somewhere.
Near t.v. dinners,
stiff bread loaves,
you lie frozen,
waiting,
belief suspended,
racked till lights blink,
fresh air rushes,
melts you alive.
Are you sleeping,
are you sleeping,
brother bird?
Time
Need opens doors
to lives on ice,
freed from plastic shrouds
to thaw.
Temperature’s rising,
satin’s feel migrates to feathers—
strokes of luck
for fingers.
You’re each a handful:
I stretch wings,
find winglets under flight’s fancy:
spares
for others downed to ground.
Secret wings outwit heat,
while mortals’ melt,
sun-swimming to infinity,
circling in eights,
never, never landing.
For secret wings,
I’ve no spare arms to flap
past sun’s chill,
moon’s least heat
kept at bay by the frigid sky.
Need asks its sacrifice
of hearts no longer beating.
Pose for me.
I’ll show you
as you would be,
still alive,
living still,
still living.
Strobes light the bird-beyond,
blinding your glazed eyes
to see past this place,
to life on paper,
my flattened scheme to fly,
this time toward sun,
shining in a dark room,
where wings bend time
to silver under glass.
My bird family tree
roots in acid,
is fixed, framed
by poison and press.
Wish
Is frozen time no comfort?
Here’s another.
If I lie beside you
in your ice box bed,
I’ll warm you by body,
till chill spins webs,
finger to feather
toe to claw,
and all of us
go numb.
Eight
black marks
dangle in curved dilemmas,
dark commas in the sentence
naming fear.
Cat with spider,
webbed in mouth I often kiss,
brings desire turned down,
thrust awry,
plotted by nature’s pen.
Livid color’s witness,
I imagine, feel
comma legs curving,
brushing lightly,
curling slightly,
overlapping lips.
The spider—
held by teeth
piercing instinct’s soft belly—
moves only comma-legs,
to punctuate minutes,
mark, delay and pause,
to vainly deliberate
death’s sentence
imposed by a feral judge.
Victor and her victim
taste sight that blinds my eye.
A spider-meal congeals
sickness, phobia,
the horror
of commas
dangling,
caught, heaving,
in consumption’s agony,
by a quick-witted cat,
her tail in tensed exclamation,
pointed, prideful possession,
her tail,
the furred gavel,
raps death’s sentence
on black commas
pausing,
breathless
until the ending
period.
Ovarian
Waltz
Red curtains,
velvet endometrium
sewn in secret
waits patient.
Nature’s corps
forms
backstage,
unripe understudies,
for the season’s prima ballerina,
who, lit by moon and stars
of passion-fed pulse,
hears snapping synapses
call in hormone-tongue:
“Begin.”
The audience grows tense,
longs for release,
through the dance of a sugar plump fairy.
Round, proud,
the she-egg spins on internity
(a micro-distance from wait to fate)
from her twinned ovary nest,
to fimbrian Sargasso Sea,
capturer of circular life potential.
Tangle of flesh-ropes,
soft, silent fingers prompt the dance,
sweep life
to Fallopian narrows,
where the pas de deux emerges
from a company of leaping,
twirling pirouetters
soon exhausted,
their one-time performance
canceled,
with no reviews,
scant applause,
marked as spent potential’s drip
down river aisles to EXIT,
dark
between the legs.
Failure’s shame occurs in numbers,
comes in being
only a number,
not knowing
or knowing
life:
a measure of counts.
Red curtains,
velvet endometrium,
drape a stage
for occult arabesque,
where the duet plays on
as one, two . . .
overtaking space
as a dance
of egg, sperm
grows grand
with design.
I
Will Dance
1.
I will dance for you.
Come here . . .
sit down,
lie down at my feet.
Watch me.
Hear my music.
My body speaks
your language,
draws out
your buried thoughts.
The dancer—me—you have
no words for.
I’m glittered garments,
hung on rusty, mind-bent hangers
in your closeted heart:
costumes you put on
as I do skirt and leotard.
Your sequined longings,
bright,
too garish for your life
on me give color,
form to your desires.
My arabesque, a tour j’ete
come pretty close
to what you feel,
what you want
and do not get
from her.
Your dull duet
without music
lacks dimension.
There is no spark in lame performance,
repeated often,
repeated often,
once more
without feeling.
2.
I will dance for you,
mime your numbness,
confinement,
fling sweat in your eyes,
into your lifeless lap,
turn in circles,
mad,
confused,
dance a Tarantella,
rid myself of your venom,
spin, spin
until you whirl
into my maelstrom,
this choreography,
my life.
In this deep dark place,
I will dance you
into nothingness,
and when you dissolve,
I will dance
to the steady white cadence,
memory’s absence.
Red-sequined,
spent,
I will not bow
to you.
And
Men Were Dancing
Faces in the cloud
of Miami vice:
woman with a past
heaves to heaven
her injected breasts,
while one summer rose
melts moonlight
raining on Alec,
whose guitar stings strings
of my puppet-heart cords.
Notes rise past palms,
date-heavy,
ripe for ambrosia.
Shall I climb up and pick them
while men dance below
to Bizet’s Carmen
and Alec’s genius?
No one will notice
my lingerie lack.
No
Go for Barbie
1. Soft Landing
Fallen from my star,
I landed in your silk world,
your own space invader
in velvets and lace,
images, words.
Your eyes locked on me:
blinding blue searchlights
scanned me, probed my mind.
Seeking you,
I lost direction.
Your voice was sound and tone
unknown to me.
2. Please Identify
You say you're human,
Check your tag.
ERROR. ERROR.
No one on this planet
has a mind like yours,
looks, acts like you.
3. Transmission Data
Never the same
you are x,
constant and variable,
y's value (me)
you set to zero.
We are not
an ordered pair,
x
over
y
is imaginary
since
x
is undefined.
Our intersection-
past history?
I'm trying
to refigure,
must find
solutions.
Putting you down
on paper
is good strategy.
Will try
to infinity
to solve
for
x.
4. Love's Telemetry
Saying this is easy,
getting free is hard.
Formulas, aspirin
don't help.
You don't help.
You don't do anything, in fact.
So I wait on some corner
to catch the shuttle,
or a cold for my death
since I can not return
to my Star of Origin,
the life-like doll,
an ex-cloud-commuter
with Eyes That Blink and empty head and heart
with Real Love:
an impossible payload that will
never liftoff
never escape earth
or your gravitational force.
The
Deer
Drunk on red wine,
we sat,
then She appeared:
an apparition,
spirit-sired
by glass-held grapes
(drunkenness, we knew,
would bring magic,
balm,
the day required).
You saw her first,
then I:
one doe's whiteness—
a flying satin sheet
drawn
by moon man hands
to cover a bed of leaves.
We watched, you and I,
from a distance,
metered her progress
with our photographer-eyes.
I think about those moments
and I know.
The doe was me.
You saw her first
because I could not view
myself
going down
a dark road
into pain.
Some words you spoke
come to me now.
Are you meant
to save my life?
Remember:
she disappeared.
The doe dissolved
in trees.
She became night herself,
keeping secrets,
hearing,
not seeing.
Some blind ones
you cannot save.
I might dissolve
in trees,
into night.
Picture-takers know
when they're losing
the light.
If you see
through red glass,
a deer dressed
in white,
remember me,
trees,
dark,
night.
Optical allusions
will bring back
the light.
Tweetie
Junk jars catch vinyl kitchen clutter.
Stored bacon grease perfumes Woolworth plastic ware.
Fifties Betty Crocker crap.
Mammy-fat Frigidaire rules
linoleum tile, my aunt's kitchen chair.
Rancid smell: Savannah air,
drunken uncle (has no hair).
My pet bird in brassy cage,
avocado-pineapple prince of song.
Dusty corner-crouching cat:
watching, waiting for a chance.
Tipsy hands on bird cage door,
opportunist-cat eyes,
saucer-sized,
reflecting wings.
Silence purple-red with blood,
green snow-feather flurry.
Cat, bird, invisible.
Outside, bright,
bird parts betray.
Devourer's tail slung 'round,
as if hurt can spin away.
Yowling fur circles backyard weeds,
where plants and horseflies
greet the carnivore,
behind a clothesline,
chintz, chenille.
The wake within:
iced tea, polite coconut cake,
flies and relatives swarm to mourn,
feast, shake heads over loss and alcohol.
Fixed at six, the scene remains.
Behind a mind,
the dormant memory, silent screams
wake to rage.
Drunk,
bird,
child:
one left.
One thousand heaven-shelved junk
jars:
caked grease and tears unmixed.
Betty Crocker lied.
Uncle, cat in cat-uncle hell.
Green feathers make their bed.
Cool sides of their pillows
are ember briquettes.
Lying down's difficult;
to sleep is not
to dream.
Adam
in a Box
1.
He reclines nude, gracile.
Life's gift—an incandescent spark
delivered by his Father's hand.
Adam.
Michelangelo-cast in Sistine splendor,
Adam is Alpha's innocent,
asks only to breathe.
In past, I was like Adam.
I went about nude,
asked only to breathe.
I grew, bore my own Adam.
Things change.
Like grime on the Sistine ceiling,
sent softly upward in candle-lit prayers,
human nature—with no particular malice—
obscures, darkens bright
views of youth's innocence.
Lapis' shine on fresco,
like newborn, rose-hued skin,
dulls in time by breathing
common air, dust.
2.
First sin knows no quitting,
is beauty's imperfection.
In Rome eternal, rents within
surface as Sibyls' fissured gaze.
Gilt transcept crosses time and face to form
crevaced features of Eden's two.
Mallet, palette,
hands of a mind to change:
no grand restoring conceals,
erases faults of vaults or flesh;
you, I can't change
the blood-beat rhythm of human pulse.
Given human nature,
the scene shines in me,
a fresco I paint over mind's arches,
thought's Sistine Chapel.
I render figures on reality's walls:
slowly at first,
dragging brush,
wet with salt-solutes,
some stains or other from the pigmented past,
tracing watercolored forms,
blurred to line ragged imperfections.
Brush strokes quicken.
Red, yellow,
portraits in toxins
efface the poisoned race,
race poison to their faces.
I'm careful, though
to picture people as real:
normal-enough,
smiles concealing darker truths,
the dusky impasto beneath fine veneer.
No one notices
fake, painted people,
posing as innocents,
trompe l'oeil in flesh tones,
who fool the heart instead.
And then, there's Adam.
My Adam.
I paint him reclining,
nude, gracile,
asking only to breathe,
like Michelangelo's Adam on the Sistine ceiling,
owning his sole, perfect moment,
before life begins.
One thing's changed.
Adam's painted in a box, where
I keep him very well:
so always,
he asks only to breathe.
Wide Angle
Views
The
Moon Queen
lives in your neighborhood,
day-drabbed
as the woman next door.
She flies
from the cul de sac,
street-lit,
at 3:40 a.m.,
precisely.
At first, she struggles,
gains altitude
over grass,
broken glass,
broken houses
built to harbor
broken dreams.
White-gowned legs
scissor-kick night air.
Dew is dense,
begrudges her escape,
while we dream,
swim by REM,
stroke, pull
against sleep's gravity.
Human flight,
rarely seen,
witnessed by moths and stars.
Feral cat-cries,
then searchlight eyes
send the Moon Queen arcing,
trace her regal progress,
warn against dawn,
when kingdom come
and sun
silence songs from night
birds
making love
to her poor,
parched ears.
Big
Talbot In Sight
From soil and air,
swimming in history’s sea
come the force of all armies,
Charlemagne’s bravery,
collected conscious grunts and sighs
that trumpet
flotsam’s march to dam
the impending event
horizon.
Insight in sight:
(see exploding diagram):
Ashheap amalgam
of society et al,
much as I hate it,
I’m vinyl and atom bombs,
haste makes waste,
crown jewels and take-out trash.
Pretending to love the homeless,
I swallow marzipan peaches,
and reach for Miss Clairol,
to hide silver threads among the old.
Not starting from the beginning,
I profit from when
dark stayed dark until
someone lit a fire against confusion
and brought in cable
to tell me how much I need
a break today,
cars and a good night’s sleep.
Never mind. Before Tony
made a universe
from red clay on Big Talbot Island,
before he tossed
earthburnt dirt
on white high tide sand,
not til brown sugar orbs bored
stars-in-space patterns
and the sun lent its name in shadow marks
to the grainy cosmos
(which I photographed)
I didn’t think to space
scale,
about our place
in the sun’s solar system,
and how
that red diamond’s
just one fired-up coal
in a nebulous brazier,
too hot for even Stephen Hawking’s
brain to handle.
Awed,
knowing I’m one unit
in a random numbers generator,
a small ball
spinning on a space
pool table,
I wonder
why we bother
to do more than get by.
I wonder
why I put effort
into making pictures
that explore time,
its effect on things.
I repeat after me:
I—dead, gone,
make pictures that will live on,
but will furnish no clues,
to anything other
than my
brief, bright,
falling star life.
Rationale:
if my pictures save
someone the trouble
of repeating
light experiments
on feathers and rust,
I won’t
have tinkered
in vain.
Eyes
Like Mine
Ancients wove it through
our silk unconscious,
that when Night appears,
enfolding earth with Her great darkness,
we sing evening canticles against the gloom,
to ward off all
imagined horror
of demons,
sin,
of simply
not knowing.
Sages say
there must be something:
absence of a god: taboo.
Guiding force
abides in wise ones,
who tell the rest
they shall believe.
Still,
foolish minds and those who won’t see
embrace the wind
and love the trees,
climb a high dune,
hold a sparrow,
worship earth
with eyes like mine.
God
Bless
So you think you’re a poet.
We’ll see.
Welcome to the grunge world,
where you tell it like (not as) it is.
So you think you’re a poet.
Prove it.
Don’t write on loveliest of trees.
Write about the corner guy,
one step from homeless,
chaw-stained teeth,
with labored breath asking,
“ ‘Shine, Mister?”
Write about him,
about the poetry of his desperation,
honesty,
of no matter how old, tired,
he is working,
getting something
for something,
not standing at Fifth & Main
with a sign,
“Will work for food, God Bless.”
That’s a scam, you know.
Each beggar has a territory;
those men are predators.
Last week two killed one
for rights to stand
at Fifth & Main,
“Will work for food, God Bless.”
There once was a sign,
meant to be funny:
“God bless this mess.”
Hung indoors
in the sixties,
the sign needs moving
outside.
Still think you’re a poet?
Having second thoughts?
Word up:
loveliest of trees got chopped down for signs.
“Will work for food, God Bless.”
Would you take him home, feed him?
Poets, the rest:
we’re not brave.
Write about that,
then go plant a tree.
Holding
a Camera
is having God’s power
in hand
because I’m able
to freeze the sun,
blow up stars
make people tall,
short,
disgusting, fair.
Any moment I see,
anything I want,
I press a shutter;
it is mine.
If this is stealing souls,
then I am a devil, ill-disguised.
Lately,
I’ve concluded
I’m an angel,
one archiver
of life.
If You
Wish for Rubies from an Emerald Sea
water will exhale a sapphire breeze,
and sigh, she has no such jewels
for your delight.
You must cover your head
with sand-sheets
and wish again,
wish once more
for rubies from an emerald sea.
When blue sky-sister warns her
not to trust you with her treasures,
that you will wear them
to dazzle and betray,
take instead the oil from great fish
and smooth it on your wanting face.
Let feathers find your fingers,
not rubies from an emerald sea.
Close eyes to wanting,
unless it be for waves,
to ferry you on glass dreams,
where a rip-tide only slightly torn
buoys pieces of azure,
sun-dazzled and floating in chancy liquid,
like old fishermen,
with irregular pulses,
mending nets in shadows
of conscience and need.
If you wish for rubies from an emerald
sea,
what you get instead
are orchids blooming on stone walls
in your dreams,
in which a grass-river confuses,
causes mobs to gather,
fill a long corridor,
where moon-flowers grow on walls
you must picture,
but suddenly,
you’ve no film.
Run down your dream,
beyond a bridge,
where Miami high-rise,
with oriental cut-glass doors,
sprouts a cluster of canes,
whose heads are dogs and dragons,
while below,
a portrait-painter waits for business,
considers balding men and tourists
for the canvas trade.
Neon palms say equinox’s at
seven:
when starfruit blooms
in sequence with the tide.
Don’t believe them.
Between your toes,
you must place
quartz rubies,
to prettify your feet,
and dazzle,
on July Fourth.
No. I won’t be the
one
to close your eyes
against
long-haired girls and wind that tangles their minds.
The beach,
whose legion is sand,
will stab your back
with angel shell swords,
take your breath—
on contingency, of course—
and give it back
cloud
by
white-blue cloud.
Time Exposures
Ancient
Sis
1.
Circe was a major babe.
Rock-bound, wailing,
‘cross waves, through air,
her sisters’ siren songs,
lie-tied lure lines
reeled in men.
Her lips promised pleasures,
changed watermen to earth-pigs
roasted, not warmed
by her sorceress-touch.
2.
How dreadful, evil we think Circe,
while women sit at mirrors,
putting on this perfume, that blush,
pulling on Spandex, forming bodies to songs that call,
packing life in Lurex,
so all that glitters may someday
geld.
Women are like Circe.
Siren songs: scent, silken stockings,
suede minis, heard loud, clear
by men turned
to lo-fat swine,
post-modern porcine.
3.
Water runs over this body,
draining down Circean cells,
no good at calling up men.
Pulsing, throbbing chrome Neptune shower head,
phallic, shiny,
curved to bathe my body,
dissolves my sweat,
postpones the ache.
For two minutes
and only two,
I feel no pain,
I am new.
And always, as I step from shower
to the sky-blue mat
(grateful for this small pleasure),
I say to no one,
“I feel better than the Man in the Moon.”
On earth, this tile-bound Circe
sees invisible sailors in the mirror,
Vanity Lake.
I sing a song, the siren’s call—
Ulysses: this one’s for you.
I wonder . . .
facing scarred nakedness,
pumped up by Wonder Bra,
smoothed in vanishing cream,
am I a major babe?
Set to stun by curling iron,
made up to bait a seaman,
I’m breathing fire,
feeling cool,
I’ve an appetite
for barbecue.
6:58
Your colors—those
I feel you hold
are gold,
especially silver, some copper:
colors of the brazen sun,
the moon
in a switched-on state.
My colors
(if they are mine to claim
unlike you) are
blue dash green,
purple,
perhaps vermilion,
that shameless shade of scarlet,
brilliant and burning.
Mine are colors of summer,
when the essence of things,
living, rooted and winged things
rise to inhabit,
perfume the air.
Our colors together
make a rainbow,
furnish the spectrum
of what I do not know.
Like a rainbow’s colors,
we do not touch,
but arc out together,
setting off each other,
to a lined and lucent end,
an abrupt farewell of our beings’ lightness,
or perhaps the quiet dissolution,
a mere shudder of our shimmer,
put out.
Anesthesia
drawn by dark:
early,
black.
I think of you,
the colors
of you.
Wolf
Man and the Philosopher
Come and get me, wolf man.
I am ready to be ravished.
Crawl all over me,
smother me with your stinking hide,
hiding nothing.
Come and get me, wolf man.
Snatch me from this clean, well-lighted place
of cold, starched sheets.
Drag me off to Wolfland where
together we will baby-sit
Romulus & Remus,
while Mother joins the hunt.
Together, we will lie in
flea-filled brambles,
musty caves,
gnawing bones,
coveting birds.
Come and get me, wolf man.
On muddy, mossy bed of leaves
I’ll let you take me.
When last you’re done then throw me
to a pack of others.
I’ll be a willing captive
until they tire & want to sleep,
eat, fight among themselves
over
large bones and small she-wolves,
while I crouch in some dank corner,
watching, waiting,
mesmerized by animal goings-on
denied me by my birth
on cold, starched sheets,
bleached, with no fleas,
a waiting bassinet & rubber tit,
not warm skin nipples
dripping milk
upon my cry.
Come and get me, wolf man.
Take me, under sign of Lupus.
Teach me howling, baying,
biting, stalking,
till I can waltz on frozen lakes
sure-footed as you,
till I can shed the snow
of fiercest storms
and laugh
as all around me cry
in Wolf.
Come and get me, wolf man.
Play with me, warm me,
long as the moon is full.
Then when it wanes,
dissolved by blue night air,
I’ll stand witness
as you shed your fur,
do a reverse Lon Chaney,
turn bit by bit,
from furry head to tail,
back to Thinking Man,
becoming then
a thin philosopher,
quite nude of hair,
not stinking,
not doing anything, in fact
but wondering
who you are,
and quoting
Bentham, Jeremy; J.S. Mill,
and all the ghosts of thought
that haunt
your hairless hide,
hiding everything,
doing nothing,
nothing at all.
This clean, well-lighted place—
it’s nice—
the salary’s fine.
Your deodorant smells great.
Conferences abound,
but papers just don’t cut it
when the moon is full
and stench from below rises,
beckons like a good beef stew.
When reason leaves,
distinctions blur,
my monthly regress grows hair.
It calls to me;
I answer back.
The old refrain,
a light night verse
fills air with the cry:
Come and get me, wolf man.
I am ready to be ravished.
Bold habits
are hard to break.
10:02
Sunday morning,
still.
Rain’s steady slip
through promiscuous clouds
permits
life’s clear catalyst
exit from heaven:
excursion
(round-trip drip)
to earth.
Roofs, leaves,
silk cocoons and cows
garbage heaps, castles
stand mute
to rain’s assault.
Salt-free,
clear tears
dissolve dust,
hasten growth,
invite decay.
Rain’s yin, yang:
sweet-sour miracle
on tap.
Liturgy
for Lt. James Spencer, 1947-1969
It has taken me this long
to write you
to write you up in verse
from thoughts dismissed by those who say,
"I'm sorry,"
then expect me
to shut up and not tell them
how you died in Vietnam
23 years ago
three months in country
for
Your Country 'Tis of Thee.
Lord have mercy on your soul.
LORD HAVE MERCY.
Christ have mercy.
LORD HAVE MERCY.
Time to remember you comes not
in neat
packages of kind convenience
in steady measured doses
easy to swallow
Time comes when it will in jagged strikes
of trauma, pain
mine not to mention yours
as you lay broken
body suffering
which was not noted in
the Official Report a
black-edged telegram
REGRETS TO INFORM YOU OF YOUR
HUSBAND'S DEATH
. . . WHILE PILOT OF A MILITARY AIRCRAFT THAT
MALFUNCTIONED, CRASHED AND BURNED
IN A GROVE OF RUBBER TREES.
Regrets to inform you
more than flesh burned down that day.
NOW LETTEST THY SERVANT DEPART
IN PEACE.
According to Thy word.
Dare I write this knowing
your life and death
merit more than badges, unit patches
works on paper
more than words from a grieving mind
whose anguish years from hearing Taps
chains a voice to silence
and whose remembrances
cause tears to fall on keyboard letters
a s d f g h j k l semi-living without you
z x c v b n m questioning if your soul looks down
on me
now and forever world without end
AMEN. PRAISE THE LORD.
For what?
Do you believe in resurrection?
I can make it happen, too.
Open drawers out come
medals tiny strips of colored Valor
The Flag, official letters of regret
Miss Otis Regrets
these sacraments invoke your presence
See, it's easy to make you walk
with me the quick
and you
the dead.
ALLELUIA CHRIST HAS RISEN
So have you.
The worst part of your death
was telling your mother long distance phone
her sobbing through the wires
how to tell a mother her son is gone?
The saddest thing about your death
was when they sent your body home
naked without your wedding ring
that came to me in Personal Effects
I guess I could have had them
open the coffin
and put your ring back on
but the grieving widow me
you saw on national news
did not think
she did not think
she could not think
GLORY TO GOD ON HIGH
peace on earth good will to men.
So I have your ring not you
your son is you reborn
and both still bear your name
what I value most about your life
is that you gave it loving me.
I also have your name and birth
and death
graven on a black wall
where roses teddy bears and letters
candles boots and flags
are left as you lie sleeping
now I lay you down to sleep
I pray the Lord your soul to keep
forever and ever
WORLD WITHOUT END.
Amen.
Ms.
19
(poem on my photograph for the Women’s Suffrage Stamp, killed
in committee by a sexist remark)
Lay wings on the washer,
crawl inside
white sheet cocoon;
fold antennae,
wait for grace.
“Come to me softly,”
sing the Fleetwoods,
while freckles fade
in lemon juice acid
of what remains.
Stinging nettles
scald,
remind me
I’ve led a sheltered life,
folding warm sheets smooth
before cold sets in wrinkles
I cannot iron out.
Does vacancy remain
on Murderers’ Row?
If so, I’ll take a room,
please,
write O.J. I miss him
since CNN and Ito
shut the door
and pulled the plug.
Sea-green grass
now ground down brown,
lets light gain amplitude
in autumn’s tide.
I stand with Susan:
beauty’s beacon,
she shines far to sea
as the lens allows.
The shutter snaps me,
a tripod steadies;
appearing normal,
I shoot away.
Making pictures
takes Susan’s beauty
to heights above the blue-white dune.
On film,
she lives transparent
will never age,
will never die
unlike Jim,
and my Anne Lynn.
Is film the permanence,
the grand beyond
that’s here instead?
Confusion follows
see-through icons,
that first on viewing
seem fable-false,
then bring the knowing,
through tint and grain,
though silver’s stable,
secrets decay.
Macro
Scenes
The
Blue Room
spins.
Life sends
no yellow tickets
punching you
good to go
except to Mars
where volunteers are needed
to live on rooftops
and make commitments
to science and the asceptic technique.
The blue room
is yellow,
often cold,
holds mostly
cats, dust,
and silver finger prints
in black and white,
a particulate trail
marked by rainbow samples
stapled with uncertainty
to the pressed board confines.
Once in a while,
the blue room
lights up like Christmas.
On such occasions,
blue becomes all colors,
except itself.
The blue room
is my room.
Won’t you come in?
I need a painter.
I’m tired
of blue,
can’t make a decision,
and color-blind,
they say.
Lace
is intricate design
admired for its
linked snowflake complexity.
From lace
hang hosts of empties—
invisible,
drained spaces:
bodies
of people
having no spirit
Slender thread connects
lace and people—
one cut
and off comes the lot—
one stab severs the tenuous meaning
or whatever existed.
Lace: lovely drifts of verbiage,
no snow falls on southern ground
already frozen down
around the vacuum.
A master maker
once spun lace in heaven’s shop
(so we think).
The weave’s imperfect,
full of holes,
inclined to dingyness and tears,
does not hold up
to washing.
But tatting was never
a task for God,
who’s left that to humans,
and gone to more
important work.
Had God practiced
making lace,
(mentored maybe by some winged seamstress,
skilled in Chantilly and Belgium designs)
God’s later constructions
might have turned out
better.
Green
Zinnias and Goldbug Shoes
I thought her name was Zinnia
and for a few days, dazzled,
I went around connecting
her and her tallness
with green flowers in my youth,
blooms I carried
into womanhood
and grew them in sun
as I nurtured my sons.
Zinnias, green zinnias:
Color: tincture of electric envy.
Distribution, appeal: seed stores,
summer darlings,
Burpee calendar girls,
flowers
exquisite as phosphored emeralds,
faceted, set, displayed,
a thousand rounded petals,
a vast collection of gems
on stems
needing no polish,
only love and sex
from bees.
I thought her name was Zinnia,
and flower thoughts bloomed
in my mind,
while sun
(her goldbug shoes)
winked brighly,
shined brightly at me.
She said,
this transplanted German in a Florida hothouse,
the green zinnia announced her love affair
(by mail)
with a poet.
Ears turned,
burned red considering
the green zinnia with goldbug shoes
whose mail male
brings comfort,
joy of sex,
the very best kind,
sent by stamps,
sex you don’t have to get up
and bath after,
the very best kind
of man for a green-petaled woman:
she doesn’t have to hear
him snore.
Z z z zinnia,
blooming,
in goldbug shoes.
With
You
Some things I’d like to do
with you:
bake an apple pie then eat it
all
wrestle you to the ground and win
laugh in triumph
sleep with you (really sleep)
play the Dictionary Game
(Unabridged or Oxford)
see “The Color Purple”
shop for clothes
choose by virtue
of your strange tastes
wear them all together
take them off
stand before you
naked as I feel without you
giggling like a child
look for angel wings on Tybee
sing you up the Costa del Sol
freeze with you in Boothbay Harbor
stay there til blueberries grow
pick them spill them
put them in your mouth
till it holds no more
and purple stains your lips
on mine
watch Madonna’s videos
make one of our own
take a thousand rolls of film
print the pictures one by one
one on one
with you
Positive
and Negative
1. Viewing the Negative
Your image in silver halide glowing,
with loupe I magnify you,
a nebulous figure
caught in time
on film.
Your image in silver halide glowing:
all things possible
through aperture and time
Don't worry. The safe light shines discreetly,
keeps your secrets in a dark of sorts.
Your image in silver halide glowing,
the latent part is loving me.
But turning latent into present
calls for more
than chemistry.
Sometimes it happens.
Elements combine.
Sometimes your life
and mine react
as silver to light
and when they do,
the heat
or whatever between us
burns holes through film,
igniting paper,
and sweet smoke from the flames
covers doubt,
smooths rough edges
of wondering,
and what we want
is now printable,
entirely possible
within a dark room,
if only there.
2. Printing the Positive
Your image in silver halide glowing
I crop from the crowd
of men where you stand.
I superimpose you
in a field of clouds,
wherever I wish--
any fitting scene besides this world
backlights
your image in silver halide glowing,
too much admired,
false as dreams,
it is all I have.
Boxing
Fish
Gathering work
to send through the mail,
I think, “my life is in this box.”
My life is a box.
Price: $16.50.
Worth every penny,
don’t you think?
Last night watching PBS,
I was jealous
of manta rays and whale sharks,
graceful dancers
in a plankton review.
I imagined I was riding,
on a ray’s back,
that angel fish--
groomers of the deep--
were brushing my teeth
so I wouldn’t have to.
When the show ended,
I got up,
brushed my teeth.
When the day ended,
nothing changed but sheets on the bed.
My life is prints in a box.
My life is a box.
Come angel fish,
come.
The
Wedding
Tonight I went to a wedding,
one union of souls with group approval.
The bride was a doll
on her own wedding cake;
the groom made it somehow
through the fuss.
Relatives
looked like bit players as
“The Relatives.”
At the reception,
Woman with Cane
stood by the fireplace.
I took it all in
frame by frame.
Waiters in white
bearing pasta in cream . . .
my poor camera hands
got kissed a lot
by lips,
some said, “Susan Lucci,”
the Father of the Bride
thinks I’m like
Jacklyn Smith
but really,
I am Duchess of Dismay
in disarray because
no matter what I do,
what purple skirt I wear,
I can’t engage you
in a slice
of my life,
yours,
ours,
let there be
an ours,
for better,
for worse.
Afterimages
Halcyon
Bluff
In those days,
I did not appreciate
the rich South,
the roads I roamed,
alone.
Oh, they were beautiful.
I remember.
Moss held still to trees
while my long hair swept breeze
from a curious head
thrust forward but noticing
that by the roadside,
Confederate roses
allowed me to pass.
The roses were
most ladylike,
like my mother,
who said,
“You can catch more flies with honey
than vinegar.”
On an English racer,
I often went adventuring,
having packed a lunch.
Funny. I don’t remember
where I ate boiled eggs and sandwiches.
What I remember:
white columned mansions
on the Vernon River.
Deserted, alone,
standing stalwart, in dignity.
Standing.
These houses let me in,
let me climb their stairs
and crawl out on rusty roofs
to look out on the river,
to watch fiddler crabs
play marsh music
to Savannah sun,
while I— audience of one—
felt part of their performance,
not human,
but one in their number,
whose silent symphony
surpassed even Sidney Lanier
and “The Marshes of Glynn.”
At twelve,
one can only store memories,
Vernon River views.
There is youth’s failure
to realize the moment’s richness.
Years later it’s possible,
to summon scenes,
to feel and see marsh green and yellow and gold
and white columns
and white Confederate roses,
ladylike, that allowed me to pass
into now.
What was Savannah,
I have today.
I have not lost the view—
though developers did away with it.
I have not forgotten fiddler crabs.
They, at least,
still convene for the sake of music
on the Vernon River.
Time distills and purifies,
lays itself away
against the coming confusional tide,
and conveniently covers
the sandy sinkholes where angel wings
fly deep into saltwater heaven.
Now it’s a treadmill I ride,
my long hair's done up against sweat.
The ambition’s still there.
My lover packs lunches;
he boils eggs and brings
lemon pepper,
tries to help me grow up,
to have grown-up tastes like his.
My lover likes olives,
pickles and hot things.
His tastes reflect maturity,
that he can leave sweets behind.
Spurning his olives,
I talk about the Vernon River,
how I biked down Halcyon Bluff Road
alone
to explore the mansions
to climb up and over and out
to view the marsh.
My lover and I
are part of nature.
He’s an oak tree, though,
and I refuse to mature.
To scale his branches,
laugh a little,
to sing, dance
and take care to not slip on his leaves,
to spare him my clumsy moves,
are ambitions on paper and film.
My lover sees beyond
the child that plays in his arms.
A little nuisance,
I remain, nevertheless.
Space
Travel
Dark
becomes you.
Negative reverses
to positive you,
you, positively,
enlarged
for my delight.
My favorite vision:
you,
asleep,
helpless
to speculation.
Substitution:
this paper icon,
print-in-progress
has rewards.
A darkroom voyage:
through magnifier,
I find
I lose my way
in the universe of an eye,
where a newly-discovered galaxy
on negative 17A
spins silver orbs,
silent circles
focused grain.
Astronomers now study
Shoemaker-Levy’s collision with Jupiter,
while this star-gazer considers
no less a comet-lit miracle:
your image, lit by enlarger.
Instruments reveal
a star-world on easel,
created by some god I should thank,
formed for me
by hands that knew my need
for you.
Close-in,
enlarged by time and light,
I find your eye is not one thing,
is a thousand silver treasures
strung together by taut thread,
your strength.
Silver crystal by adjacent pair,
I fly in the constellation of a single eye.
To think that I now move
across an iris,
hover in space
between lid and lash
makes me discoverer,
namer, founder of uncharted you.
If, then, astral bodies are known
for founders,
your eyes should be Ivy-1
and Ivy-2,
amd rightly so,
for I have found them,
moved over them
in careful, studied steps,
crystal by crystal,
with fingers and my own eyes,
instruments of flesh.
The question hums and goes to ill-kept
time:
do blue eyes differ
from dim-lit black?
I plead confusion,
I have no answer now,
so distracted
by silver points,
the small star-planets
pulsing messages
toward darkened wait.
Want
Ad
Fairy tale princess
lately of a southern kingdom
come thither,
come thither,
needs rescuing
from personal dragons.
She’s the real thing—
blood blue as jay feathers,
blanched skin,
wide eyes allow light
in a dark room’s safety.
A mind
not her own,
badly-muddled
from years spent cringing
in an ogre’s shadow,
now she seeks freedom
and a full-time job.
She positions herself
best as she can,
knowing it might not happen,
that when the ogre returns
she may be dragged off.
Look away,
look away,
look away,
Dixieland.
Searching for jobs
she finds a self-help page
a www formulaic
whose bytes cite some cryptic charm :
“Employment
depends on strength,
stealth,
and from small Egyptian flasks,
some magic.”
Sounding
an Unsound Mind
Ours a clean perversity
in which elements occur
naturally
or not at all.
Maps are unnecessary. AAA shows no guide.
Your scent's a secret
made only for
my senses.
You're right to be afraid.
No years separate
this grand play,
a last-decade effort
to tie into love.
I'll whore for a corner
of your face,
that place between your nose
and mouth.
I'll run naked
to hear you speak
to clothed crowds.
I'll go blind to see
your hip's curve
in dim light.
In such lovely madness,
we must try,
think,
use minds we lost
on others.
Pity.
The lost poems, spent on K-Mart passion,
were sold out and rain-checked
when endearments broadcast on loudspeakers
poured pennies on a dirty floor.
Convention's not part of the plan.
Footshock with restraint
could punish
my aberrance:
hunting you,
wanting you for myself.
I confess: I wove a sticky, silken trap
for you.
Naturally, the natural-born naturalist
would find
or be found
by a she-wolf
that tracks you
through white dreams,
enters your house,
floats past your sleeping wife,
calls your name softly.
It's time.
Come with me.
Rise,
fall into my night
where no time passes
but that we allow,
where words
and birds
wrap us in gauze feathers,
heal to sweetness
the tragedy,
our meeting.
Secrets and soap bubbles dance inviolate
in autumn air ; the hidden ballet's at eight.
Have me while you can,
then throw a rope line
from eternity
to cinch stripes on my back
and I'll bear you forever,
comme le savage,
to the end of wind,
the last of sands' grain,
where salt leaves the sea
for a life of its own.
On a beach I will place you,
lay you down in sea grass,
cover your memory with my body,
seal you in love's waxing ambition,
like a touchstone in amber
made for holding to light.
This
Space Occupied
There are no poems left
in me
THIS SPACE OCCUPIED
by thoughts of you
nuanced you,
rapidly-expanding matters
crowding out phrases,
verse.
There is no rhyme,
no reason left
in me.
Your scent,
the sight of you displace
what should be,
what could be
and what I will to be
streams in and out my pores.
Wanting’s hot, sweet breath
fans fires that sear
my songs.
From ashes would come
a phoenix:
that rare bird
better for the burn.
But here we find
heart’s embered changling:
in place of poet
the lover stands
singed, shaking.
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